From Slate

Timothy Noah on the problem with the doves:

American doves have lately been spouting two conflicting orthodoxies. The first is that the United States is not at war. The second is that the United States can’t go to war with Iraq because that will interfere with the war on terrorism. The logical inconsistency of these two propositions is bound sooner or later to attract notice from the hawks. To repel this attack, and to clarify and define what Chatterbox considers the sensible muscular-dovish position, it’s necessary to acknowledge that the first orthodoxy isn’t true while the second, though mostly true, is in need of some tweaking.

First, that inconsistency has been noted. Here, for example. Second, Noah’s position seems to break down to, “We need better excuses for doing less.”

War with people who break their ceasefire agreements is the default position. War with madmen seeking weapons of mass destruction is the default position. War against nations who harbor our enemies is the default position.

Which means that fiddling around with semantics really is the best Noah can do to advance his (non-) cause.